Watch Out for These Roof Related Rip Offs

It’s extremely unfortunate, but almost every business niche has its slew of scammers and rip offs. It is fortunate for us, however, a roofing industry leader has come forward with a few tips on how to avoid two of the biggest scams in the roof repair and replacement business.

ILM Roofing is a local roof repair/replacement business with loads of experience in dealing with customers who have been ripped off by scammers. They do their best to advertise to locals what to look out for by encouraging their clients to share experiences with scams. And now, they’ve given us the info we need to make a warning style blog post, detailing what to look out for to avoid these rip offs.

Here’s the two scams they detailed:

1. Sales Pressure Tactics

This sort of scam goes on in nearly every home improvement sphere out there. It’s especially common in the roofing business, and our experts say that with this area (because of storm damage) it’s even more likely to occur.

Avoiding the companies that employ these ridiculously high pressure techniques is simple enough: avoid any roofer that comes across as “salesy”. That might seem like common sense, but people fall for it all the time!

Immediately ignore any roofer that shows up unannounced. These companies might be pulling more than one kind of scam in this case. Also disregard any contractor that requests down payments before any work is done.

For lots of homeowners, it can be all to easy to fall victim to something like this because roof repairs and replacements are usually only needed once or twice in your lifetime. Don’t be fooled and avoid legally binding contracts. Be especially wary of roofers interested in your insurance policies!

2. Bid Scamming

This scam is straightforward enough and never excusable if the contractor knows what they’re doing when they inspect your roof and give you your initial consultation.

Essentially, they raise the price of the job after they’ve started. It often starts with offering the homeowner a bid that’s much lower than what the other local companies bid. This is simply to get them to agree to working with them! They target seniors or new home owners, knowing that they have less experience with home improvement services.

Once the job starts, all sorts of issues start cropping up. The scamming contractor might resort to fibs about rising material costs or even unforeseen issues they didn’t catch in their inspection. Don’t fall for this! If a roofing company offers you a low bid, there’s a reason. And one reason might be that they’re trying to pull a fast one on you!

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We're a local business news aggregation tool for Wilmington, NC and the surrounding area. We do our best to stay on top of industry trends, big news breaks, and the like.
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